It makes some sense, but being the smartest guy in the room doesn't help if no one can follow you.

In the 90s, his opponents wrongly took his words 'whither on the vine', a statement about some antiquated bureaucracy, to make it look like a death sentence for all seniors. It worked because he had already been painted as enemy of the women, children and the elderly. This is different. It was his allies who blew their fuse. It worked because conservatives are already skeptical about his conservatism.

The clarification is wonkish and vague. "My plan will... " I'm sure he will have his own specific plan for us to judge the merits. Like Romney, he is still talking about increased government involvement in health care and producing sound bites for Republican opponents. He has been in close contact with Paul Ryan for 4 years. If he is the leader of this movement, where was plan then to show the public when Washington was deeming PelosiObamaCare passed and ramming it down our throats?

If Newt ran a perfect campaign and hit all the right notes on every issue with every group, he still faced an insurmountable problem IMO. As a loose cannon, drawing questions on himself and alienating friends, GM unfortunately has this about right.

Death by Bureaucracyby Newt GingrichEarlier this month, a panel appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services made a recommendation so detached from the good of individual patients it could only have come from government bureaucrats. They recommended eliminating screening for the most common cancer among males nationwide.The United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) is composed of 16 government-selected experts whose recommendations often influence the reimbursement policies of Medicare and private insurers. The range of members’ backgrounds is narrow considering the group is charged with advising the federal government and other healthcare providers on specific medical procedures: almost all are academics or administrators rather than practicing physicians. The panel includes experts in pediatrics and newborn care, in mental health and geriatrics, but not a single urologist who actually takes care of prostate cancer patients.Despite lacking any specialist who deals with the issue, the panel issued a recommendation this month to stop using the only available test to screen for prostate cancer. PSA tests, which measure levels in the blood of a marker known to be elevated in men with prostate cancer, are the sole method of screening other than digital examination by a doctor, which cannot detect the most common form and usually identifies those cancers it can much later, when they are less curable. Without the PSA testing, many men will have no way to know they have the disease until it has developed into a much more dangerous problem. In some cases, it will be a too late by the time they discover it. What is the basis for the panel’s recommendation to discontinue screening that can save lives? It has nothing to do with the merits of the test. Instead, these government-appointed experts advised against screening because they disagree with what some doctors and patients choose to do with the information once they have it.Prostate cancer is a complicated issue, and elevated PSA is not always a sign that a man should enter treatment. In some cases, men can live with benevolent cancers and remain healthy for years. In many other cases, it is simply unclear even from biopsies whether the cancers are benevolent or lethal, as both kinds register on test results.

E

Understandably, many men faced with this information want to do everything possible to make sure they do not have a lethal cancer, and many doctors, as well, recommend curative therapy even when they are not certain the cancer is lethal. There are definitely patients, especially older men, who undergo treatment for prostate cancer they could have lived with if it had gone undetected. If prostate cancer is over-treated, the sensible response for the USPSTF would have been to call on the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute to help develop a better and more accurate test, and to advise doctors and patients to consider more conservative approaches when the test suggests the presence of prostate cancer.Instead, the task force’s answer is simply to deny doctors and patients the chance to consider early treatment by recommending they not screen for prostate cancer in the first place.

That is not a reasoned response to the problem. It is a bureaucratic response to the problem, and people will almost certainly die because of it.This points to the difference between the bureaucratic approach to healthcare, which leads to rationing, and an approach to empower individuals and their doctors to make the best decisions for them.Bureaucrats cannot comprehend the complicated details of all the individuals for whom they try to make decisions and so they issue one-size-fits-all pronouncements for large classes of people. In this case, when the bureaucratic approach identifies a class that is being over-treated, it calls for the elimination of screening to warn of the disease. That way fewer people will have the information they need in order to be faced with choices involving some options the bureaucrats consider undesirable. Physicians can’t over-treat a prostate cancer they have not detected. Of course, it is ridiculous to have a handful of government bureaucrats with no expertise in the matter issuing recommendations that influence federal, state, and private health systems in crafting policies. Doctors and patients are in the best position to determine whether individuals should be screened for prostate cancer and to judge the best course of action afterward. No one should want the government interfering in these very personal medical decisions. Lethal bureaucracy is a disease we can’t afford—and one that is entirely preventable with the right policies. Your Friend,

Intro speaker has some VERY good charts but the audio track has an annoying hum until about 14:00. Newt and Cain come on at 15:00. A pleasure to hear serious, unhurried, intelligent conversation at this level.

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls—from near zero to the third slot in several polls—should come as no surprise to people who have been watching the Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world apart from the usual that the political season brings.

"Substance" is too cold a word, perhaps, for the intense feeling that candidate Gingrich delivers so coolly in debates. Too cold too, no doubt, to describe the reactions of his listeners, visible on the faces of the crowds attending these forums—in their expressions, caught on C-SPAN's cameras, in the speed with which their desultory politeness disappears once a Gingrich talk begins. Their disengagement—the tendency to look around the room, chat with their neighbors—vanishes. The room is on high alert.

The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition forum last month—an occasion for which most of the candidates had, not surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in their lives. Michele Bachmann told how, after struggle and indecision, she had found her way to God. So did Rick Perry. Rick Santorum provided a lengthy narrative on his personal commitment to the battle against partial-birth abortion—a history evidently from which no detail had been omitted. Ron Paul offered quotes from the Old and New Testaments where, it seems, he located support for his views on the dollar.

Editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz discusses why she thinks Newt Gingrich could win the Republican nomination. Photo: AP..There were two exceptions to the lineup of speeches embracing religious themes. One was Herman Cain, who concentrated on the meaning of American freedom and admonished the crowd to stay informed, "because stupid people are running America." The other was Mr. Gingrich. No one else's remarks would ignite the huge response his talk did.

He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012, Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and bureaucracies.

He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected, something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every turn. The difference was, as always, in the details—in the informed, scathing descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likely—even imminent.

Mr. Gingrich predicted, too, that late on Election Night—after it was clear that President Obama had been defeated along with the Democrats in the Senate—the recovery would begin, at once. His audience roared with pleasure. No other Republican candidate could have made the promise so persuasive.

Finally, Mr. Gingrich announced that as the Republican nominee he would challenge President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. "I think I can represent American exceptionalism, free enterprise, the rights of private property and the Constitution, better than he can represent class warfare, bureaucratic socialism, weakness in foreign policy, and total confusion in the economy."

When it came time to answer questions from a panel of journalists, he was asked first about energy, one of those vital subjects that don't tend to yield lively commentary. How would Mr. Gingrich's policies differ from those of the current administration?

Mr. Gingrich launched into a lethal thumbnail description of the Obama administration's energy policy. The president, he said, had gone to Brazil and told the Brazilians he was really glad they were drilling offshore and that he would like America to be their best customer. "The job of the American president," Mr. Gingrich told the panel, "is not to be a purchasing agent for a foreign country—it's to be a salesman for the United States of America."

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CloseAssociated Press

Presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.The former speaker of the House is a dab hand at drawing listeners in, for good reason—he showers them with details, facts and history in a degree no candidate in recent memory has even approached. Audiences have a way of rewarding such trust.

No one listening that night to candidate Gingrich's reflections on the menace of radical judges from Lincoln's time on down could have ignored the power of his fiery assessment—including the Dred Scott decision, others by courts today that threaten our national security, and much in between.

The Iowa contest ahead is all important for Mr. Gingrich. The same is truer still for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Ms. Bachmann has been looking increasingly aware that her hopes are fading. Mr. Santorum now seems to inhabit a world so nearly exclusive in its focus on family and family values that it's hard to imagine him a successful contender for the presidency of a large and varied nation of Americans with other concerns, the non-family kind included.

Then there's Congressman Ron Paul, who last weekend let it be known that if he doesn't like the views of the person who wins the nomination, he won't support the Republican candidate. This is a good reason—one of many—for Mr. Paul to retire himself from further debates. It's a certainty, to put it mildly, that he's not going to be the nominee.

It would be passing strange to have as a candidate for the presidency of the United States an envenomed crank who regularly offers justification for the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the annihilation of 3,000 Americans. It was an act, Mr. Paul explains in these exculpatory sermonettes, to which the terrorists were driven by American policies. Mr. Paul may get all the fond buddy treatment in the world from his fellow debaters, but few Americans outside of his devoted army of isolationist fanatics will forget these views.

That leaves Mitt Romney, and Messrs. Perry, Cain and Gingrich heading the list of competitors for Iowa. Mr. Cain's prospects were good until this week brought accusatory testimony from another woman—one who showed up in person, with plenty of detail. Charges of lies, financial motives and conspiracies notwithstanding, it's hard to see how Mr. Cain weathers this disaster. No outsider can know what actually did or did not happen. But all the snorting in the world about Gloria Allred, the accuser's attorney, isn't going to change the impact of this highly specific accusation.

Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There's no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.

His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich's qualifications all 'round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.

Two more positive pieces with references to the 3rd that Crafty just posted. All three make the case he can win by discussing his strengths and mostly skipping over weaknesses.

Steven Hayward regarding the Newt interview Crafty posted: "...Newt at his best, reminding us that then he is on his game there is no one better. (Hayward is author of two volume series 'Age of Reagan'.) He likes very much Newt admitting the mistake of sitting on the park bench with Pelosi (“That was the dumbest single thing I’ve done. . . simply inexplicable), but still... what was that?! I know what it was, Republicans were going to sit down with Democrats in government and figure out how America can learn to produce less and consume less, and they did!

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Steven Hayward in GOP Presidential Race 2012The Case for Newt

I’ve been meaning for a while now to circle around to Newt Gingrich’s quiet rise from the ranks of the also-also-rans of this campaign. I’ve been pretty hard on Newt here on Power Line over the last few months, most notably back in May after he got tangled in labeling Paul Ryan’s fiscal design “social engineering from the right.”

I noted here last month that with each debate “Newt Gingrich’s ‘it’s-so-crazy-it-just-might-work’ strategy for this race is looking a little less crazy,” but the right analogy might be that Newt’s tortoise and hare strategy is paying off. We know Newt didn’t run in 2008 partly because he thought it would be difficult to compete with Romney’s ability to self-fund a campaign if need be, though Newt might also have perceived, as Nixon did about GOP prospects for 1964, that 2012 would be a more favorable year for both him and the GOP. The same problem—Romney’s money advantage—is here this year, too, so Newt’s live-off-the-land strategy was a long shot, requiring one thing that Newt has often struggled with: discipline and focus. Newt has always had the worst case of political Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder since the beginning of clinical politics.

But lately Newt seems to have hit his stride. Did you happen to catch him on the “Center Seat” segment of Fox News’s “Special Report” last night? It was Newt at his best, and reminding us that then he is on his game there is no one better. Maybe the best part was when Steve Hayes played the infamous TV ad Newt cut with Nancy Pelosi three years ago about the “climate crisis” (about the 6:50 mark of the video). Newt didn’t finesse it: he straight out said, “That was the dumbest single thing I’ve done. . . simply inexplicable. . . it was just dumb.” Not often a politician admits a mistake that straightforwardly. And then he went on to give a concise account of the issue of climate and energy that tracks pretty closely with what I said on this site way back in the spring after Romney botched the issue.

So enter as witnesses Byron York in the Washington Examiner a couple days ago[I will post below], and this morning Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal (“Why Gingrich Could Win”), making the case for Newt even more strongly:

Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There’s no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.

His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich’s qualifications all ’round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.

So as Cain fades from the scene (I like Cain, but I’m sorry, he’s not ready for prime time presidential politics) and Perry continues to perform erratically, there’s a decent chance Newt will emerge as the not-Romney candidate. And then there will be a test to see whether the GOP “establishment,” such as it is, can put Romney over the top, and whether the Tea Party and other conservative grass roots Republicans will put aside their well-founded suspicions of Newt.

But beyond handicapping the primary campaign dynamics, Newt is doing something interesting and maybe profound: he is trying to run for president according to an older model that stresses substance over sound bytes and gimmicky, targeted campaign strategy. (Hence the emphasis on Lincoln-Douglas style debates that de-emphasize the place of the media questioners, among other things.) It is a bid to see whether presidential politics can still be conducted along the line of the old republic that would be more familiar to the Founders, to the style of public argument more akin to what Hamilton had in mind in talking about “refining and enlarging the public view” through “reflection and choice” in Federalist #1.

Footnote: Keep in mind one other thing from one of my previous comments here on Newt:

Whenever I think he is off his rocker, I remind myself that Newt was practically alone in thinking, from the first moment he arrived in Congress in 1979, that Republicans could take a majority in the House if it was sufficiently aggressive. Even as late as the eve of the 1994 election the conventional wisdom among political scientists and most journalists was that Democrats had a permanent majority in the House that the GOP could never break.--------------------http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/york-gingrichs-wonkish-unconventional-campaign

DES MOINES - Last Friday, at precisely the moment Herman Cain was basking in applause at a conservative activists' gathering in Washington, Newt Gingrich was in a small conference room at the Marriott Hotel here, discussing cognitive illness with three brain scientists.

"What I am trying to do is initiate the idea that solving health problems is the best way to reduce costs," Gingrich begins. Look at polio, he says. What if it had not been cured? What if one took the high cost of treating polio in 1950 and simply projected it through 2011? The numbers would be enormous. Without even considering the human benefits, curing polio was far, far cheaper than treating it over decades.

Now Gingrich wants to approach Alzheimer's and other brain disorders the same way. "The scale of brain-related problems is so large and so unreported," he tells the scientists, "that if you think of the supercommittee right now, for example -- they're trying to find $1.5 trillion [in savings] over ten years -- the projection the Alzheimer's Foundation gave me was that Alzheimer's alone could cost $20 trillion in public and private funds between now and 2050." Spending billions on curing Alzheimer's -- sums Congress would never approve in today's political atmosphere -- could save astonishing amounts of money in the long run.

It's the kind of wide-ranging and wonkish discussion Gingrich is known for. Indeed, the former Speaker, whose mother spent the last years of her life in a long-term care facility, has devoted a lot of time over the years working on Alzheimer's issues. But now he is in the middle of a presidential campaign. He's in Iowa, with 60 days to go before the caucuses that could decide his future. He is hours away from a crucial speech to the Iowa Republican Party's annual Reagan dinner. And he is spending nearly two hours of his day, behind closed doors, with three doctors, a couple of aides, and one reporter, talking about brain research. The topic of the approaching caucuses does not come up.

Gingrich often says he is running an unconventional campaign. Republicans here in Iowa would probably agree, since they don't see him all that much at traditional stump events. But most have no idea just how unconventional the Gingrich campaign really is.

On this day, Gingrich's plan is to integrate his longtime interest in health issues, and in particular brain research, into his appeal to voters. In an interview after the session, Gingrich says he wants to reach "everybody who's worried about Alzheimer's -- and over 55 years of age, it is a more common fear than cancer." Here in Iowa, the organization Iowa Against Alzheimer's estimates there are 69,000 people over the age of 65 with the disease. Take their spouses and children and relatives and friends, and add other people so far unaffected by the disease but worried about it -- take all of them, and you've got a very large group. They vote, and Gingrich wants to reach them.

Gingrich has test-run the idea in a few recent public forums here and in other early-voting states. "In South Carolina, a Tea Party leader walked up and said, 'My dad died three years ago with Alzheimer's, and I understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish,'" Gingrich says. "People can have a checklist in their head that says on these things, Newt Gingrich understands my world and is trying to make it better." Gingrich plans to work the message into his speeches and discussions with voters more often as voting approaches.

Whatever Gingrich is doing these days, it's working. Thanks in part to impressive performances in several GOP debates, he is moving up in the polls, both nationally and in key early states. He's raising money again after a meltdown -- a massive staff defection and damaging stories about big-spending habits at Tiffany -- that nearly killed his campaign a few months ago. And voters appear to appreciate his sticking with it. In discussions across Iowa in the last week, it is striking how many voters volunteer Gingrich's name as someone they're finding more and more appealing. If either of the current frontrunners, Herman Cain or Mitt Romney, were to falter, Gingrich is in a position to benefit greatly.

And he's doing it his own way. What other candidate would take a large part of a critical day to talk science when the campaign trail beckons, with local officials to meet and hands to shake? "We'll see if it works," Gingrich says with a laugh. "It's a great experiment."

Several entries today: Please check out the Newt speech and the Newt-Cain "debate".==================

Dear Marc, A poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers this week has Newt surging ahead of Mitt Romney by three points! This is especially important news because the media forces that are terrified of this campaign have been saying that while Speaker Gingrich has steadily risen in the national polls, it didn’t matter because he remained behind in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

The good news, however, does not end in Iowa. In South Carolina, we saw this headline out of CNN: “Gingrich Amasses Largest South Carolina Campaign Footprint.” Our staff in South Carolina now includes nine incredibly talented professionals, and we will also be opening offices across the Palmetto State, starting Saturday with the grand opening of our headquarters in Greenville.

With less than 60 days until the first votes are cast, the path to victory is clear. First, we know that we can count on Newt to win voters with masterful debate performances and substantive speeches. Second, we need to build strong campaign organizations in each of the early primary states to capitalize on Newt’s winning message. Building those winning campaign organizations takes resources, and that is why our fundraising push to raise ONE MILLION DOLLARS this week is so important.

In just the first three days we have raised nearly $300,000 towards our one million dollar goal! I know that we can keep the momentum going and reach our goal if you will join us today by making a generous contribution!

Yesterday, we put out a call for those of you who can afford a larger contribution to join Newt’s List and help us reach our goal. So far 41, people have stepped up and made a contribution of at least $250, and 34 people have secured a spot on Newt’s List by making a contribution of more than $500! That means we still need 159 people to make a contribution of $250 or more and 66 people to make a contribution of at least $500 to complete Newt's List. Please help us reach our goal and secure your spot on Newt’s List by making your contribution of $250, $500, $1000, or even the maximum contribution of $2500!

The first is that he has no issue or problem banning what he thought to be military or assualt rifles. He seems to fall into the Elmer Fudd class on guns , if it is for hunting it is fine but if it is for anything else it isn't fine. If he doesn't understand the 2nd I don't see any reason to think he understands the other amendments or the Constitution itself.

He stated in an interview around 2004 that he voted against the '94 ban because there were a few firearms on the ban list he didn't consider assualt rifles. He seemed to have no problem banning firearms as long as they were not hunting rifles.

2nd issue is that the '94 ban was dead and had no chance of passing into law until Newt came up with the "10 year sunset clause" which added enough support that the ban passed by one vote. Newt voted against the ban but was responsible for it being passed as much as anyone was.

I also liked Newt when hearing his ideas and considered him an intelligent person but after reading up on him I just can't see myself voting for anyone who doesn't understand the 2nd Amendment.

If my information isn't correct please set me straight on Newt. I do consider him one of the more intelligent and capable candidates but the gun issue will keep me from voting for him if what I have read is correct.

Conservatives in the GOP are desperate to avoid a Mitt Romney nomination. Mitt's a flip-flopper who gave Obamacare a test-run in Massachusetts. He used to be pro-choice. Mitt's just a bad show all around.

And so conservatives have given Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain a ride up and down the polls. And now this agony is causing conservative voters to lurch to Newt Gingrich.

This would be a horrible mistake.

Newt has gained traction in debates by attacking the media. Fine, conservatives hate the media. But Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew attacked the character of the media. When Newt gets a question he doesn't like, he starts whining petulantly. He practically faints as if his corset has been pulled too tight. C'mon conservatives, you know this doesn't appeal to you.

Then there is his personal life. Remember when George W. Bush ran for the presidency, he constantly pledged to "restore honor and dignity to the office." People just wanted to get over the personal drama afflicting the Clinton White House. Newt Gingrich cheated on his first wife with the woman who would become his second, and then cheated on her with the woman who became his third wife. He was leading the impeachment of Clinton, while diddling his Congressional aide. And now he makes little documentaries about God. In these films he wears tailored suits, not sackcloth and ashes.

The Obamas are the picture of blue-state family-stability. Gingrich is the face of red-state family dysfunction and hypocrisy. If you somehow nominate this man, say goodbye to "character counts" arguments. You'll have lost them already.

"But," you'll say, "he has ideas!"

Of course he does. Newt Gingrich has all the admirable qualities of an autodidact. He's energetic and occasionally lobs a challenge at weak intellectual orthodoxy.

Unfortunately, he has all the horrible qualities of an autodidact:a tyrannical streak and an egomania that is impervious to the reality of other people.

It's pretty simple. Ideas come to you easily when you have no principles to get in the way of your roaming untrained intellect. So what are some of the ideas Newt Gingrich has promoted? Are they even conservative ideas?

He promoted the return of the Fairness Doctrine. He was for a federal individual health-care mandate, the lynchpin of ObamaCare. He was practically spooning Nancy Pelosi in commercials about the need for government action on global warming. He supports green energy projects [Solyndras] and farm-subsidies. Even as late as this year he was pitching for more government intervention in the health-care system at the progressive Brookings Institution.

How is Gingrich an improvement on Mitt Romney?

When Gingrich was betraying his own Republican revolution in 1998, he lashed out at the conservative congressmen who opposed his leadership. "They're hateful," Gingrich said of the Republicans holding firm. "They're cannibals."

If you grant him high office and complain about what he does with it, he'll be saying the same about you.

Super Committee Disaster and Three Alternatives for Americaby Newt GingrichAs the deadline for the so-called "Super Committee" to put forward a deficit reduction plan approaches, officials in Washington are arguing over whether the government or the American people will have to bear the pain.What they do not realize is that the United States is actually caught between three possible futures:

President Obama is wandering around the country promising billions in his bid for reelection. He is spending our children's and grandchildren's money like a teenager with his first credit card.Such policies are clearly unsustainable. If we continue to pile up $2 trillion a year in debt, we will crush the economy under massive interest payments. We only need to witness what is happening in Greece and Italy to glimpse where that model leads.The Washington establishment’s reaction to the runaway spending is a policy of austerity and pain. Democrats would cause austerity and pain on the individual by raising taxes, thereby shrinking family and business purchasing power. Republicans would cause austerity and pain to government by cutting spending and thereby shrinking the services and income transfers government provides.Clearly, shrinking government is preferable to overtaxing the American people but we must remember that there is a third alternative to pain. It is the path of innovation and growth. Historically, this has always been the American solution.Alexander Hamilton was an early advocate of an economic growth model. His first report on manufactures paints the picture of a growing, industrializing America.

Abraham Lincoln spoke for those who wanted transcontinental railroads and other examples of modern innovation and growth.Both President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher believed that a better future could be achieved through innovation and growth.The key to today's budget problems is to recognize that there is a world that works (largely but not entirely in the private sector) and there is a world that fails (bureaucracies in both the public and private sectors). With even a little creativity, we should be able to maximize the world that works and eliminate the world that fails.For instance, if we applied modern private-sector management systems to government they would save up to $500 billion a year. That is three times the goal of the Super Committee. To see the incredible savings such systems can offer take a look at the examples Strong America Now already provides.If we applied the American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and IBM models of fraud suppression to Medicaid and Medicare to stop paying crooks who are committing fraud, we would save $70 to $120 billion a year. (For a detailed plan to stop Medicare and Medicaid fraud, see the book Stop Paying the Crooks published by the Center for Health Transformation.) Block-granting Medicaid and returning it to the states, as Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan advocates, we would save $700 billion over the next ten years. That is almost half the goal of the Super Committee.With just these few examples we have already come up with most of the savings the Super Committee is trying to achieve, with no pain involved.Adding a training requirement to unemployment compensation would strengthen America’s human capital. Many would probably leave the program if they actually had to do something to earn the money.History has shown us that innovation, reform, and growth will be better than the pain and austerity being discussed in Washington today on both sides of the aisle.Your Friend,

Newt==========PS I acknowledge Newt has had some really off key moments along the way, but I'm not sure I'd take that opinion piece's author at his word on his descriptions of them-- and I have no time or energy at the moment to look into it further,.

As the debates accumulate, it becomes more and more evident that Newt Gingrich’s intellect, experience, articulateness and depth of knowledge elevate him to the top of the GOP field. Anyone should be happy to pay admission to watch him duel with President Obama in debate! He’s not as charismatic as Herman Cain or as smooth as Mitt Romney, but boy, does he have a brain!

Ever since the campaign started, Newt has always gotten in his own way. Now he has graciously stepped aside and let his creativity and intellect shine through.

Earlier in the debates, he bit the questioners’ heads off in a pique of surly crankiness. No longer. Now he just answers the questions as they come, often hitting them out of the ballpark. His perspective and insights are penetrating and his condescension has vanished (or at least is sublimated).

Unfortunately, he does owe some of his current surge to the unsubstantiated and vague charges against Cain. While Republicans generally dismiss these charges, they worry that they will hurt him in November should he win the nomination. Herman will recover. His positive solutions for our economy will lift him back into the top tier of contention. Michele Bachmann might also come back, lifted by a tide of opposition to any tax increases embedded in the deficit-reduction supercommittee’s recommendations.

But any recovery by Cain or Bachmann will not bump Newt from the top tier. The likely result of the debate process is to bequeath to Iowa three or four contending candidates and leave it to them to sort out.

If Newt is the candidate, will his personal baggage drag him down? It will hurt, no doubt about that. His marriages will be dissected by the media, and his family will be deluged with questions and well-laid traps.

His ratings will decline as the inevitable baptism of fire begins. As with Cain, he will experience a few bad weeks. But, as with Cain, his positive strengths will carry him through the fire and he will come out the other end.

But once Newt survives the process, he will be inoculated against the charges. He will have immunity against the issue.

And here is the core of Obama’s problem. All of the Republican candidates will be so thoroughly vetted — and purified — by the brutal process they are going through that they will be immune to his charges against them in the fall.

John Kerry never went through that process. His quick knockout of Howard Dean and the tepid challenge mounted by John Edwards did nothing to vet his claims of hero status in Vietnam.

Obama, on the other hand, survived the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers charges in the primary. When the general election came, they were old hat and had no electoral punch. Similarly, Bill Clinton got the nomination only after he had survived Gennifer Flowers and the accusations of draft-dodging. In November, those charges were spent bullets.

That’s the good news for Republicans. The nominating process has been so combative and the media scrutiny so searing that the candidates have been pre-screened. The FBI screening process is nowhere near as intense as the negative-research capacities of the media and political opponents.

If nominated, Romney will have survived the accusations of flip-flopping, Cain will have overcome the sexual harassment charges and Newt’s marital history will be yesterday’s news. And then we can get on with the business of winning the election.

And win it we will. Obama cannot survive his 60 percent disapproval rating on his handling of the economy (the highest ever recorded by CBS during his administration). Under his leadership, Gallup reports an almost 10-point edge for the Republican Party on handling the economy. Against a generic opponent, Obama draws only 43 percent of the vote. With the personal negatives on the Republican candidates aired and used up during the primaries, there will be nothing for Obama to hide behind.

By ALLYSIA FINLEY Back in May when Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign was imploding, his spokesman Rick Tyler released a statement blasting the "sheep" in the conservative media for unloading "their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods."

Mr. Gingrich at the time was under attack for dismissing fellow Republican Paul Ryan's Medicare premium-support plan on "Meet the Press" as radical "right-wing social engineering."

(Shame on this reporter. This accusation, which I bought into at the time, has been shown to be disingenuous-- read the question to which he was responding when he made this comment and all will be clear.)

Mr. Tyler went on to forecast that "out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead."

It's true that three new polls show Mr. Gingrich has re-emerged from the political rubble, but it's not clear whether he's ready to lead.

A Public Policy Polling survey places the former House speaker in front with 28%. Herman Cain and Mitt Romney trail him at 25% and 18%, respectively. Since June Mr. Gingrich's favorability rating has flipped from 36-49 to 68-23, a 58-point improvement in his spread. A CNN/Opinion Research poll also shows Mr. Gingrich in second-place with 22%, which puts him in a statistical tie with Mr. Romney. Mr. Cain trails both at 14%. But perhaps the best news for the former congressman is a new Polling Company survey that has him deadlocked with Mr. Cain in Iowa.

Mr. Gingrich has staked his campaign on winning Iowa, which would give him momentum going into South Carolina, Nevada, and Florida. He even sold himself to the ethanol lobby, vigorously promoting industry subsidies. The Center for Public Integrity reported earlier this year that Mr. Gingrich had performed consulting work for an ethanol firm at a charge of $312,500.

Now that Mr. Gingrich is rising in the polls, these issues are likely to come back to haunt him. We're also likely to learn more about his marital problems, ethics violations and lucrative work as a consultant for Freddie Mac. Mr. Gingrich has hitherto gotten a pass on these issues because of his irrelevancy. Now that he's getting more traction, he should prepare for heavier fire.

Gingrich's Freddie Ties Draw Scrutiny By NICK TIMIRAOS And BRODY MULLINS Consulting work Newt Gingrich performed for Freddie Mac is drawing new scrutiny, now that the Republican presidential candidate has risen in polls on the backs of tea-party supporters and other conservatives skeptical of Washington institutions.

Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, was hired by Freddie Mac for two stretches after leaving Congress, beginning in 1999 and again in 2006, during periods when the housing-finance company faced growing threats from policy makers who wanted to clips its wings, people familiar with events said.

Mr. Gingrich and his firm gave advice on how to portray Freddie Mac to conservatives, people familiar with his role said.

Freddie and its larger cousin, Fannie Mae, remain deeply unpopular with some conservatives and tea-party supporters. Mr. Gingrich has joined fellow Republicans in blaming members of Congress, Washington lobbyists and Freddie and Fannie for contributing to the decline in the U.S. housing market.

A consulting firm run by Mr. Gingrich was paid more than $1.6 million over seven years by Freddie Mac, according to people familiar with events. The payments were first reported by Bloomberg News.

Mr. Gingrich's campaign said the former House speaker didn't lobby Congress on behalf of Freddie Mac. "I was approached to offer strategic advice," Mr. Gingrich told reporters on the campaign trail in Urbandale, Iowa. "I was glad to offer strategic advice, and we did it for a number of companies, and Gingrich Group was very successful."

People familiar with his role said Mr. Gingrich and his firm were paid to provide advice on how to portray the company to skeptical conservatives who wanted to cap the firm's growth.

Newt Gingrich's effort to cast himself as the big thinker of the 2012 campaign appears to be paying off. While other candidates have stumbled on policy, voters in Iowa say they like Gingrich's policy smarts. Danny Yadron has details on Lunch Break..Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond said the former House speaker met with Freddie Mac officials about once a month. "They would present problems, and he would give them ideas and solutions," Mr. Hammond said. "They were hiring him to think about their problems."

In a debate last month, Mr. Gingrich singled out Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the former chairman of the House's financial-services panel, for blame.

"Go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at Freddie Mac," Mr. Gingrich said. "Everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness."

Chip Saltsman, who managed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign, said the issue is likely to prove troublesome for Mr. Gingrich over the next several days. "Obviously, Freddie and Fannie have not been a very popular program among conservatives," said Mr. Saltsman, who isn't affiliated with a presidential campaign this year.

With about seven weeks left before voting begins in Iowa, "even the smallest missteps can turn into big problems for a candidate running for president," he said. "Right now, you should be looking to consolidate your support, not damage it."

Two polls released in recent days showed him contending for the lead in Iowa. Steve Armstrong, the chairman of the Republican Party in Linn County, said it could be problematic for Mr. Gingrich as a candidate if he was advocating for Freddie Mac.

"I would view that negatively," said Mr. Armstrong, who is uncommitted in the 2012 race. "The government should not be in the loan business."

But Mark Lundberg, the chairman of Iowa's Sioux County GOP, who said he was leaning toward Mr. Gingrich, said he was unperturbed, since Mr. Gingrich had no official title in government.

"He had no political power to make legislation," said Mr. Lundberg. "If he can make $20 million on contracts on any business, have at it."

Freddie first hired Mr. Gingrich in 1999, as the Clinton administration raised concerns over the firms' growth. He worked for the company until 2002. At that time, Fannie and Freddie, which had cultivated deep political ties across Washington, faced more critics—including a lobbying group formed by other financial-services and mortgage companies to voice concerns over the expansion of Fannie and Freddie's influence.

Fannie and Freddie were created by Congress and benefited from tax exemptions and implied government support that allowed them to borrow money at rates only modestly higher than the U.S. Treasury.

By 2005, Fannie and Freddie's dominance of the market for pooling mortgages and selling them as securities was eclipsed by big lenders such as Countrywide Financial Corp. More Republican lawmakers and other critics pointed to the changed market as proof Fannie and Freddie weren't needed.

Mr. Gingrich was brought back in 2006 for two years to provide advice to the company on how leaders could present the firm in favorable ways to conservatives who were set on curbing its growth, according to people familiar with the matter. He wasn't registered as a lobbyist and didn't have the job of contacting members of Congress, these people said.

Until the government took over Fannie and Freddie in 2008 to avoid their collapse, the companies regularly offered lucrative jobs to officials exiting the government, such as President Barack Obama's former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who served on Freddie Mac's board of directors. The government rescues have cost taxpayers around $151 billion.

CAN something inevitable also be highly improbable? That is the question raised by the arrival this week of Newt Gingrich at the front of the pack in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. It was inevitable, after the successive implosions of Rick Perry and Herman Cain, that Republican voters desperate to nominate anyone but Mitt Romney would cast their eyes down the list and alight on one of the last remaining contenders.

And what, after all, is so very wrong with Mr Gingrich? Unlike Mr Cain, the man has been a serious politician—Speaker of the House, no less, and architect of the Republican resurgence of the mid-1990s. Unlike Mr Perry, Mr Gingrich does not go blank in the middle of television debates. If anything he has during the recent debates been a bit of a star, albeit a dark one, sneering contemptuously at the “absurd” gotcha questions posed by the journalists. And although nobody can accuse him of wearing his learning lightly, he does at least have a goodly amount of it, darting apparently effortlessly in discussion from the minutiae of federal social policy to the grand sweep of world history.

In this sectionCrying wolfKeystone cop-outWe will frack youThe efficiency conundrumSunshine or colonoscopy?Many scrappy returnsThe Becks effectWhat goes around»The trouble with NewtReprintsAnd yet the rise of Mr Gingrich is also improbable. It is improbable, first, in that his campaign got off to such a terrible start that his resurrection at this late stage, just in time for the Iowa caucuses in January, is a minor psephological miracle. In June he suffered what should have been a devastating blow when much of his campaign staff resigned en masse, allegedly in protest at his decision to cruise the Greek islands with his third wife, Callista, instead of raising money and pressing the flesh in Iowa and New Hampshire. He put a brave face on this setback, claiming that he knew how to campaign in a new way, by generating ideas and raising big issues in the televised debates. Unlikely as it seemed at the time, this strategy has now been vindicated: chapeau!

There is, however, another way in which Mr Gingrich’s high standing in the polls is improbable. A whole regiment of skeletons has taken up residence in his closet. Once these rattle back into view, as they surely will, many of the Newtly enamoured Republican primary voters will surely drop their search for an alternative and reconcile themselves to the inevitable nomination of the less exciting but more electable Mr Romney.

A good place to start, since it is what did for Mr Cain, is character. The likeable former pizza mogul faded in the polls when it emerged that a succession of women had accused him of sexual harassment. No charge that grave is laid against the far less likeable Mr Gingrich. The former speaker is, however, a serial adulterer, who divorced his first wife when she was recovering from cancer, when he was already bedding Marianne, the mistress who became his second wife but was ditched in her turn for Callista, his present one. At the same time as he was conducting a secret affair of his own he was pressing for the impeachment of Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Should marital cheating be a disqualification? Not in the eyes of this column. But voters in socially conservative and early-voting Iowa and South Carolina may think so. It is bad luck for Mr Gingrich that one of his former wives has been so willing to disparage his fitness for the presidency. In an Esquire profile last year, Marianne said her former husband “was impressed easily by position, status, money” and believed “that what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connected”.

Even after allowing for the bitterness of a woman scorned, and for the forgiving propensity of conservative Christians, this is not a testimonial that will help at the polls. He will also have to explain again the $300,000 penalty the House of Representatives made him pay in 1997 for violating tax rules, the first time it had ever disciplined a Speaker for ethical wrongdoing. A new controversy has now flared over $1.6m or so he has earned in fees from Freddie Mac, the government-supported mortgage giant which has since been blamed for pumping up the housing market and helping to cause the financial collapse of 2008. Mr Gingrich claimed in a recent debate that he had been taken on as an “historian” and had warned the organisation that the housing market was a bubble and that its business model was “insane”. But a Bloomberg story this week avers that officials who worked at Freddie Mac at the time deny having received any such advice.

Isaiah versus the management consultant

Few people question Mr Gingrich’s energy or originality. He was the dynamo behind the Republicans’ Contract with America in 1994 and remains a pyrotechnician of ideas: a “21st-century” sequel to the Contract is under construction. The worry is that he lacks the wisdom to distinguish between his occasional good idea and the dozens of duff and sometimes dangerous ones. He offers an odd mixture of pragmatism (he once favoured compulsory health insurance) and demagoguery. It is as if he cannot decide whether he is Isaiah or a management consultant.

Over the past year the demagoguery has got the upper hand. Mr Gingrich prophesies the end of “America as we know it” under a president running a “corrupt, Chicago-style political machine” from the White House. In the summer of 2010 he reacted to plans to build a mosque in lower Manhattan by saying that American Muslims should not be allowed to do so until Saudi Arabia permitted the building of churches and synagogues. He claims that Islamic sharia law is taking over the American legal system by stealth and he wants to abolish the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit because its judges are too liberal. That such a flawed and divisive politician has come to be seen as the shrewd elder statesman of the Republican presidential field is testimony only to the paucity of the alternatives. Unless they are feeling particularly suicidal, the Republicans will reject him, just as they have rejected Mr Perry and Mr Cain.

Now that Newt's candidacy is rising to the top, expect the brickbats to be aimed at his head. The first to fly is the charge that he was paid off by Freddie Mac to do their bidding as the company, in concert with Fannie Mae, flooded the world with funny money mortgages and brought on the global collapse of 2008.

(By the way, we have a petition to block the $13 million in bonuses Freddie and Fannie execs have voted themselves. Go here to sign the petition. We have gotten a large number of signatures and Congress is holding hearings leading to a possible roll back. Sign up!)

According to Bloomberg News, Newt got between $1.6 and $1.8 million in consulting fees from Freddie Mac over eight years - about $17,000 per month - a not unusual fee these days.

Newt's consulting agreement specified that he would not lobby and the bylaws of his consulting firm bar lobbying by any of its employees. So if he didn't lobby what did he do for the money?

Bear in mind that F and F were paying off everybody they could find. Jim Johnson, Mondale's manager, Jamie Gorelick, Clinton's Deputy AG, Rahm Emanuel, and dozens of others made a mint in consulting fees. Newt was not unique.

Doubtless Freddie hired him to show that it was not an arm of the Democratic Party and to buy some credibility on the right. His contract started after he left office and there is no evidence that he brought any concrete influence to bear on Freddie's behalf.

But this scrutiny gives Newt an incredible opportunity. He can produce memos and e mails that show that he warned Freddie about its mortgage policies. In one of the presidential debates, Newt said that he warned Freddie that they were "creating a bubble" that would burst and have enormous implications when it did.

If Newt can show that he sounded the alarm and had the wisdom and foresight to raise hell about the mortgages, he can put himself in much rarified company. To be exact: alone. Nobody else had that kind of foresight.

This scandal can either hurt or help. But if Newt used his contacts at Freddie to warn them and to try to change the Titanic's course before it hit the iceberg, it could be a good credential for his candidacy.

I took the time last night to read the entire section "Newt Gingrich" on this Forum. I found member's posts rather insightful and many quit critical of Newt. I especially liked GM"s take.

Now that Newt's the front runner, many of these comments seem forgotten. May I respectfully suggest we all review what has been written before jumping on the latest "anyone but Romney", NewtGingrich bandwagon?

Doug, I notice you were a big Cain fan, another conservative favorite, and you say you are an, "unforgiving family values voter" but I notice you are awfully quiet now on the subject of Cain since his withdrawal.

Morality does matter; his lack of it, among other problems, sunk Cain's ship. While you may ignore or excuse or look the other way, heck, you even defended Cain, voters didn't and so he's gone...No family morals...

And I do think women voters will care about Gingrich in the end...

By the way, you said, "But we didn't determine whether you are a voter we are trying to attract." What is this, a private club where the membership committee has to approve each applicant? I would think the Republicans would welcome any vote from anyone with open arms.I predict this will be a close election.

As much as I'm not a fan of Newt or Mittens, I'll still be quite happy to vote for either one over our first marxist president. No matter what is brought up about whomever ends up running against Buraq, not being Obozo will win the day.

"Doug, I notice you were a big Cain fan, another conservative favorite, and you say you are an, "unforgiving family values voter" but I notice you are awfully quiet now on the subject of Cain since his withdrawal."

Cain is not relevant to me out of the race. Besides the allegations and perhaps affair and lie about the affair, he did not show even familiarity with many crucial foreign affairs questions. When I defended him against early allegations, there was no indication to me they were true. I also posted that I liked other tax plans better than Cain's and his trademark was the tax plan. I agree, morality matters (!), but Cain was not going to be President anyway, we discovered along the way. The one of greatest disappointment to me is Gov. Perry. I like Romney's marital history over Gingrich's. As a single parent, I also have learned you can't always judge the other person's circumstances perfectly from afar.

"But we didn't determine whether you are a voter we are trying to attract."

That part was not intended negative, just directional. You have been posting economic views IMO more compatible with the other side. That is your right and your choice. The choice for the Republican candidate is for Republicans, in my case we are trying to offer a conservative alternative to the choices normally available and the current fight on the inside is against making our candidate mostly the same as theirs. Since Reagan, we have had Bush Sr. a centrist tax raiser, Dole who had no pro-growth compatibility with his running mate Jack Kemp, a big spending W. Bush, and McCain who made a career out of tearing down Republicans to advance himself as the nominees (from my perspective). That is a LONG drought! It is a wide open club, not at all private one. All you have to do is share some core principles. You, not me, get to decide if you share those principles. Newt speaks quite eloquently about a certain direction for this country, but he disgusts you - an indication we aren't on the same page. I like Huntsman's economic plan. I think you like him in spite of his plan. I tried to flush that out last week.

"I would think the Republicans would welcome any vote from anyone with open arms."

No, I wish for people who favor the other philosophies, a larger controlling redistributive government for example, to vote their own conscience over on the other side of the aisle. Maybe they are right.

My perfect candidate would take qualities pieced together from several of the candidates (and that isn't going to happen so I will vote for one of these). Part would come from Cain, the business, entrepreneurial, executive experience and bold conservative economic views in particular. I like Romney's presentation. He looks and sounds like a President, exudes competence and has a wide range of experience. I thought early the nominee should have at least 2 terms as governor of at least a middle sized state, then Perry jumped in with 10 years successfully running a G13 country equivalent with views ALMOST identical to mine. I have not ruled him out for me, but inability to articulate a view is a killer politically. Newt has passion and substance, won a national election, balanced a budget, and already was next in the line of succession behind the VP to be President. Watch the Huckabee forum - they aren't going to stump Newt by asking for a book recommendation, a supreme court case or a favorite founding father, much less a key issue he never contemplated. (He has other flaws.) He has visualized this and prepared for this job for a very long time. I would take his passion with Romney's focus and Perry's conservatism and Santorum's commitment to family, but it doesn't work that way.

"My perfect candidate would take qualities pieced together from several of the candidates (and that isn't going to happen so I will vote for one of these)" True, but a pity it cannot be. Still I'm disappointed that the best the Republicans can do is either Mitts or Newt.

I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but Huntsman, albeit is not as conservative as you like, fit's much of what you are looking for. He was governor of Utah for two terms, he did an excellent job. He did balance the budget; he was fiscally conservative. He has foreign policy experience. I don't know, but he seems to have passion and he has a strong commitment to family values. I trust him; that's more than I can say at this moment about Mitts and Newt. And somehow I think he has a heart. And he's practical - realistic; I like that too. He doesn't pander to the hard core right. Sign stupid pledges. Again, I like that. And, while you and I disagree, I like his take on Afghanistan and Iraq. Time to move on...

Huntsman, IMHO is the best conglomeration of what I am looking for in a President.

You've asked me about how can I support his tax plan. Well, it's not perfect, but I like the idea that he is doing away with nearly ALL the deductions. Under his plan, there are NO sacred cows; even mortgage and charity would be taxed.

The rich don't seem to care about the tax rate; they have their multitude of deductions unavailable or unused by the middle class, so in essence the rich's net tax rate is often lower than the middle class. Take away these deductions and I think the rich will end up, net, paying more even though the tax rate is lower.

I find polls that GM posted misleading. I think a lot of people are unhappy with Obama. But until the Republicans choose a candidate and we compare that individual to Obama, well, I think polls are misleading. It's not a popularity contest, it's a contest between two men. While the perception is that Obama is not doing a good job, the question then becomes whether he will do a better job and be more trustworthy than the Republican nominee.

In that kind of race, I think Huntsman would do very well. He would attract a lot of people, including myself who are in the middle. And as GM said, and I think most conservatives agree, they would vote for him, heck as GM said, they would vote for anyone rather than Obama. Huntsman could win.

But with Mitts or Newt, I think it will be an interesting race. Newt's past, and his lack of morals and family values will come back to haunt him in a general race. Just my take.

PS What "national election" did Newt win? Wasn't he just a congressman from a small district? That said I acknowledge he was Speaker of the House and is a brilliant man.

At least Newt is creative; he might stick foot in mouth or..... but sometimes he has good ideas.... I don't necessarily like him, but I admire his intellect, practicality and creativity. I fall asleep listening to Mitts.

"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works," Gingrich explained recently in Iowa when asked to clarify his position. "So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash,' unless it's illegal."

Sad, but true...

"Gingrich thinks compassion should be measured not by inputs but outputs. Spending trillions on poverty is beyond simply uncompassionate if you waste the money and make things worse. It's evil."

BTW I note with satisfaction JDN's suggestion about going back and reading through this thread. This is exactly the sort of thing I have in mind with the way we do things around here-- posts are organized by subject matter. The ability to go back and read on a given subject (Afpakia, Newt, whatever) over time is invaluable on many level.s

Strange Newt Respect Will Newt Gingrich be the next president of the United States? Back in the spring, when his campaign seemed to be imploding in hilarious fashion (if you go to the link, be sure to read the last item as well as the first), it was a question nobody was asking. Over the past few weeks, however, Gingrich has become either the main GOP challenger to front-runner Mitt Romney or the front-runner in his own right.

Among the four states with the earliest nomination contests, Romney leads only in New Hampshire. (As Nate Silver notes, Romney also had a comfortable Granite State lead a month before the 2008 Iowa caucuses, but he went on to lose to John McCain.) Gingrich is now up in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida. Let's focus on the last, since it's a crucial swing state with 29 electoral votes.

Last week a survey of likely Republican primary voters from Public Policy Polling, a respected Democratic firm, found Gingrich ahead in Florida with 47%, to just 17% for Romney. Herman Cain, now an ex-candidate, took 15%, and nobody else topped 5%.

The same firm's general-election poll of registered voters, however, gives Romney the advantage as an opponent to President Obama. The president leads the former Massachusetts governor by just 45% to 44%, "and given that the undecideds skew largely Republican he'd probably lose to Romney if the election was today," declares the PPP press release. But Obama leads Gingrich 50% to 44%. Among independents, Romney leads Obama by a point, whereas Gingrich trails the president by seven.

PPP declares: "This Florida poll is just one more piece of evidence: if the Republicans actually want to beat Obama they need to nominate Romney, love him or not."

That seems to us wildly overconfident, both in Obama's political strength and in the predictability of an election that is still 11 months off. Even so, we agree with PPP to the extent that we would say Romney is the safer candidate for the GOP because more independents see him than Gingrich as an acceptable alternative.

To be sure, Gingrich convinced many Republicans to give him a second look, mainly by performing very well in debates as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain were flaming out, and Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry failing ever to ignite. Why? The answer is not entirely obvious.

The main Republican objection to Romney is that he is inconstant, and thus not a true conservative. But is Gingrich really any better in this regard? In the past he has endorsed the individual mandate for medical insurance and even made a global-warmist video with Nancy Pelosi in which the two ex-speakers share a love seat!

Gingrich has cited his record as speaker, during which he led the House in producing welfare-reform legislation, balanced budgets and a cut in capital gains taxes. But Gingrich was the beta to Bill Clinton's alpha, and all of these measures were in the service of Clinton's positioning himself as a centrist. When Clinton and Gingrich clashed over the budget in 1995-96, Clinton won handily (unlike the much weaker Obama, who started losing confrontations with Congress before the GOP even took over the House).

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The next president? Just maybe..It seems to us that Gingrich's appeal to the primary electorate is best explained by reference to an earlier period in his career: 1989-94, when he was House minority whip. He was an extremely effective insurgent leader, helping to bring down two Democratic leaders, Speaker Jim Wright and Majority Whip Tony Coelho, by calling attention to their ethical problems.

As the Orlando Sentinel reported in May 1989, just after the latter announced his departure: "House Democratic whip Tony Coelho said Sunday that Republican whip Newt Gingrich was trying to destroy the Democrat-controlled House in order to rebuild it with a GOP majority." Five and a half years later, mission accomplished.

PodcastJames Taranto on the Gingrich surge. .It seems to us that what has appealed to Republicans about Gingrich in this year's debates has been his willingness to challenge the assumptions of the (usually) liberal moderators. In one of the best examples, noted by NewsBusters.org, the ex-speaker "schools" Scott Pelley of CBS on the laws of war.

As it happens, Gingrich was defending the Obama administration for having killed al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki. The point, however, is that he was aggressive in refusing to accept Pelley's smug presumption of moral and intellectual superiority--a left-liberal presumption that rankles conservatives, that is very common among the leaders of cultural institutions, and that Obama very much personifies.

Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller summarizes it as well as we've seen anybody do:

A lot of people I talk to can't fathom why Newt Gingrich is actually winning. The latest narrative--and I think there's truth in it--is that voters are hungry for someone who will "take it to Obama." Clearly, Gingrich's debating ability is key. Republicans are champing at the bit to see him debate Obama. But I think this urge is deeper than a desire to simply watch him beat up or attack the president rhetorically--they also want him to intellectually flatten him--to out-debate him.The left has a different set of explanations for Gingrich's rise. Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman says it's because GOP voters are "totally clueless" and "committed to demonstrably false beliefs." E.J. "Baghdad Bob" Dionne says the "Republican establishment" has "sold its soul to the Tea Party" and "sat by silently as extremist rhetoric engulfed the GOP." Krugman colleague Charles Blow says it's because the GOP is "bankrupt of compassion and allergic to accuracy."

While these statements are all foolish and obnoxious, they fit right into our thesis. Gingrich is popular among conservatives because he refuses to be browbeaten by liberal bullies. One can easily imagine him bringing out the least attractive qualities of Obama, who does not like to be challenged.

On the other hand, it could backfire. Gingrich has a tendency to bully back rather than respond with weary condescension ŕ la Ronald Reagan ("there he goes again"). He may need to modulate his tone if he is to win over those skeptical independents

Why is the Obama Administration So Devoted to Criticizing Israel?by Newt Gingrich

At a fundraiser in New York last week, President Obama said his administration "has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration."

Is the President looking at the same record we are? Last week's news abounded with evidence that his administration often coddles forces opposed to Israel's very existence while his officials publically brutalize Israel in the diplomatic arena.Hostility towards Israel has become a habit for members of the Obama administration. His ambassador to Belgium argued last week in a speech to the European Jewish Union that pervasive anti-Semitism among Muslims was Israel's fault. "A distinction should be made," he said, "between traditional anti-Semitism, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians." This outrageous attempt to dismiss "hatred for Jews" as a political problem should have immediately disqualified the ambassador from continuing to serve in President's administration.

Also last week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared that Israel needed to "just get to the damn table" with Palestinians, implying that Israel is the primary obstacle to Middle East peace.

Who is it, exactly, that Israel needs to "get to the damn table" with? Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, has stopped short of even recognizing Israel's right to exist. He has also repeatedly insisted that Israel abandon its right to defend its borders even after a Palestinian state is created.

Other high level members of Abbas's government have been even less coy. One declared earlier this year that Abbas's Fatah party "has never recognized Israel and will never do so." And last month, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to India wrote in the PA newspaper:

"[Israelis] have a common mistake, or misconception by which they fool themselves, assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist, and that it is Hamas alone that loathes them and does not recognize the right of this state to exist. They ignore the fact that this state, based on a fabricated [Zionist] enterprise, never had any shred of a right to exist..."

These are the people with whom Secretary Panetta claims Israel must "get to the damn table"?While administration officials publically criticize Israel, they welcome into their offices Islamist groups that express ideologies counter to free societies and the existence of an Israeli state. Just days after chastising Israel for "unfair" treatment of women, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will welcome a Saudi-based Islamist group, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to Washington for a conference on "tolerance." Far from a tolerant organization, however, a primary mission of the OIC is to restrict free speech critical of Islam. As Nina Shea and Paul Marshall wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Monday:In 2009, the "International Islamic Fiqh [Jurisprudence] Academy," an official OIC organ, issued fatwas calling for free speech bans, including "international legislation" aimed at protecting "the interests and values of [Islamic] society," and for judicial punishment for public expression of apostasy from Islam. OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu emphasizes that "no one has the right to insult another for their beliefs."

In one example of policies advocated by the OIC, they report that "In Afghanistan, Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, editor of "Haqooq-i-Zen" ("Women's Rights") magazine, was imprisoned by the Karzai government for publishing "un-Islamic" articles criticizing stoning as a punishment for adultery."

Entertaining Islamist organizations is not restricted to the State Department, either. In October, the Department of Justice removed all references to Islam from its terror training materials after what were described as "complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial."

All of this happened in just one week: One of the President's ambassadors said Israel was to blame for anti-Semitism, his Secretary of Defense said Israel needs to "just get to the damn table" with negotiating partners who refuse to recognize its right to exist, and his Secretary of State criticized Israeli treatment of women as occasionally "unfair" while welcoming to Washington an organization which promotes censorship of speech about Islamism.

And this is the administration that has "done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration"?

Good points from Newt. The propaganda and outright lies from this president never end. He obviously thinks he can get up there and say whatever he wants and his charm will simply blow us over. The MSM is letting him get away with it and indeed mostly enable him to do it.

The other point is who are we in the US to lecture ANYONE about negotiating with one's enemies with our record in shambles.

It is just as absurd and offensive to see Brock lecturing Europe on its' debt issues. Who are we to give such lectures.

This pompous arrogant guy in the WH has to go.

To see the libs calling Newt pompous and arrogant.

BTW, Newt keeps mowing his obstacles down. I would rather have an immoral Newt than moral Mitt if otherwise Newt will be better at saving the country from Brockster and the liberal socialist hordes.

Newt Gingrich promised conservatives on Tuesday he would ask former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to be his secretary of state if he’s elected president next year, according to several of those who met with him

Hours later he repeated that vow publicly to the Republican Jewish Coalition, winning a round of applause.

“If he accepts it, I will ask John Bolton to be secretary of state,” the former House speaker said.

During the closed-door meeting in Arlington, Mr. Gingrich spoke and fielded questions for about two hours from 70 conservatives, and they said afterward that they came away impressed.

One questioner asked Mr. Gingrich how he could assure conservatives he would be trustworthy, which is when he replied that he would tap Mr. Bolton, a hero to conservatives whom President George B. Bush named as a recess appointment to the U.N. ambassadorship after the Senate refused to confirm him.

Mr. Gingrich’s statement that Mr. Bolton would be his pick to head the State Department drew applause from the Jewish Republican group, which was hearing from virtually all GOP presidential hopefuls in a daylong session in Washington.

GINGRICH SURGES JUST IN TIMEBy DICK MORRISPublished on TheHill.com on December 6, 2011

Printer-Friendly VersionBut Gingrich is no Obama. He is far from a flash in the pan and about as much the opposite of an empty slogan or sound bite as you can get. He is an intensely creative man with key insights and a very keen, sharp mind. He knows the issues backward and forward and knows their history as well.

In a larger sense, we are blessed as a party to have a choice between two such highly qualified and able candidates as Newt and Mitt.Why the enthusiasm for Gingrich?

His intellect and creativity are driving his candidacy. When Ron Paul cited our arrest and conviction of Timothy McVeigh as a success in the fight against terror and Newt came back at him and pointed out that McVeigh succeeded in killing more than 100 Americans, it was one of the great moments in political debate.

When Newt was asked what he would recommend to replace ObamaCare and he spoke of the fundamental importance of brain science and its potential to leapfrog our medical capabilities far ahead, it was a brilliant, creative moment.

And when Gingrich defined the ground rules on which he would insist for remaining in Afghanistan -- hot pursuit, no sanctuaries and no aggressive attacking -- he was saying what most of us are feeling.

Romney has certain key advantages. He runs better than Newt among women. The Fox News poll has Gingrich beating Mitt among men by 6 points and losing among women by 4. Romney is perceived as more electable by Republican voters. And he is cool and balanced in debate. And polling also shows that voters trust him more to solve our economic problems.

But there is a passion behind Gingrich, the white-hot intensity of a crusade. And that kind of support can go a long way toward compensating for a lack of money or organization -- look at Huckabee in Iowa!

And Gingrich bests Romney in the competition for three key segments of the Republican electorate.

Social conservatives and evangelicals distrust Romney for his prior support of abortion -- a legitimate beef. And, disgustingly, they are turned off by his religion.

Tea Party voters are fiercely opposed to ObamaCare and are very distrustful of Romney for passing his version of the program in Massachusetts. They see Romney as representative of Wall Street and big business. They embraced Herman Cain because he was the candidate of small business and now turn to Newt for similar reasons.

National-security conservatives know of Newt's long and deep interest in protecting America's strength and trust him to keep the military strong. They worry that support for defense spending is an acquired taste for Romney -- but it is part of Newt's essence.

And, finally, Newt has his timing just right. He didn't surge in July as Bachmann did. He didn't surge in August as Perry did. Nor in October as Cain did. He is surging in late November and early December just as Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses approach.

But, of course, the process won't end in Iowa. It will only begin there. Newt is not about to knock Romney out. Mitt is too well-funded and has too solid a base of support from economic conservatives to go down so easily. This contest will go the distance and probably not be over until Super Tuesday in early March. Republican Party rules require proportional representation in delegate selection in the early going and then require winner-take-all primaries down the road. These rules assure that there will not be a quick nomination, but there will not be a long, drawn-out, draining battle all spring. And either man can win.

Newt Gingrich has risen from nowhere to lead in the early GOP primaries, and many voters seem to be gravitating to the former Speaker for his reform platform. In Mr. Gingrich's telling, his ideas are bold and even radical, but the irony is that they're often much less revolutionary than his rhetoric suggests.

Take Mr. Gingrich's 49-page manifesto on entitlement reform, which his campaign rolled out shortly before Thanksgiving. It is a fundamentally Newtonian document, both in its ambition—it promises to "reduce federal spending by half or more"—and in its lack of discipline. Oddly, Mr. Gingrich is promoting the more radical reform for the less urgent fiscal problem (Social Security) even as he hedges on what's needed to reform the main driver of spending growth (Medicare).

Unlike President Obama, Mr. Gingrich is right that these automatic spending programs must be modernized. Social Security was created in 1935 and the country has since undergone vast changes in the economy, the labor force, life expectancies, health care, retirement, consumption and government. Why should we want the same type of system in 2035, or for that matter in 2012?

So Mr. Gingrich wants to let younger workers divert the 6.2% employee half of the Social Security payroll tax into private accounts, much like 401(k)s. Not only could Americans build retirement nest eggs that they would own, some portion of the 6% of GDP that government takes in social insurance taxes would become savings and investment.

The Gingrich accounts would be voluntary, allowing anyone to remain on traditional pay-as-you-go Social Security. This is what Republicans are talking about when they invoke "the Chilean model." In 1981 Chile decided to give taxpayers the option of remaining in the traditional state retirement system or contributing payroll taxes to accounts. As Mr. Gingrich notes, within 18 months 93% of workers became investors instead of pensioners.

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.Yet the irony of Social Security is that its slow-motion solvency crisis is relatively easy to resolve—and the political system is moving toward consensus, if haltingly. Mr. Obama's own deficit commission recommended making the benefit formula more progressive, so that payments to higher income workers grow more slowly, and gradually raising the retirement age over the next half-century to adjust for longer lives.

Personal Social Security accounts are desirable, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to reject compromises that reduce future liabilities. Yet Mr. Gingrich proposes no such changes in his plan, perhaps because they are politically unpopular. But such an abdication opens him up to charges that he's not serious about reform and that he has no plan to pay for the transition costs of going to personal accounts (that is, when younger workers put their money in their own accounts, rather than funding current retirees).

Given his Social Security dreams, Mr. Gingrich's timidity on health care is especially puzzling. Medicare is a much more urgent fiscal nut, which will double in size by the early 2020s to more than $1 trillion annually even under Mr. Obama's artificial baseline that hides the true spending. The budget can't be fixed unless health costs rise more slowly, and that can't happen without changing Medicare.

After denouncing Paul Ryan's premium support Medicare reform as "right-wing social engineering" in May, Mr. Gingrich now says he supports it as long as it is only voluntary. As with Social Security, people could continue to receive today's unreformed, open-ended benefits if they preferred. This model may be politically safer and perhaps more saleable to voters, but it also does little to improve the status quo. Why would anyone leave the all-you-can-eat buffet without an incentive to choose cost-conscious options?

Mitt Romney also says he'll leave fee-for-service Medicare untouched, but the key difference is that under his plan all seniors would receive the same defined contribution. They'd pay the marginal cost above this fixed subsidy, increasing competition for the health-care dollar among insurers and hospitals, doctors and other providers.

Mr. Gingrich's plan is merely a gloss on Medicare Advantage, which has done some modest good as one out of four beneficiaries have moved to private options but without turning the fiscal battleship. At least on Medicare, Mr. Romney is the bolder reformer.

The Georgian also argues that health savings accounts will redeem the rest of the private market, but we recall that the former Speaker told us the same thing when he tried to get us to support the 2003 Medicare prescription drug expansion. We declined, and Medicare costs have kept on rising.

The contradictions of Mr. Gingrich's entitlement plan reveal part of his political character, which is that his policies often don't match the high-decibel, sometimes grandiose nature of his rhetoric. This can make it easier for his opponents to stigmatize his policies as more radical than they really are because Mr. Gingrich tells everyone they're radical. He might achieve more if he spoke more softly and carried a bigger stick.

"He was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer a day or two ago and his ability to just blow away all questions and challenges was/is astonishing. No one else is even close. Wolf was left dumbfounded."

Exactly so

The fact that I am the one who posted the Newtitlement piece shows that I am not blind to the risks of a Newt candidacy, but I would offer for consideration that this was the man who got Clinton to sign off on changing welfare as we know it (a HUGE success I submit and definitely an example of an idea of his working) and cutting the capital gains tax rate--another success and put the budget into SURPLUS. These are no small accomplishments!

If we look at President St. Reagan's presidency it too had compromises. On his behalf I submit the proposition that some of Newt's most worrisome statements need to be seen as seeing the need to SYNTHESIZE the worthy elements of the other side so that they do not feel that our success is their utter defeat.

I trust we all know who Peggy Noonan is.================I had a friend once who amused herself thinking up bumper stickers for states. The one she made up for California was brilliant. "California: It's All True." It is so vast and sprawling a place, so rich and various, that whatever you've heard about its wildness, weirdness and wonders, it's true.

That's the problem with Newt Gingrich: It's all true. It's part of the reason so many of those who know him are anxious about the thought of his becoming president. It's also why people are looking at him, thinking about him, considering him as president.

Ethically dubious? True. Intelligent and accomplished? True. Has he known breathtaking success and contributed to real reforms in government? Yes. Presided over disasters? Absolutely. Can he lead? Yes. Is he erratic and unreliable as a leader? Yes. Egomaniacal? True. Original and focused, harebrained and impulsive—all true.

Do you want evidence he's a Burkean conservative? Start with welfare reform in 1996. A sober, standard Republican? Go to the balanced budgets of the Clinton era. Is he a tea partier? Sure, he speaks the slashing lingo with relish. Is he moderate? Yes, that can be proved. Michele Bachmann this week called him a "frugal socialist," and there's plenty of evidence of that, too.

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CloseChad Crowe .One way to view this is that he is so rich and varied as a character, as geniuses often are, that he contains worlds, multitudes. One senses that would be his way of looking at it. Another way to look at it: In a long career, one will shift views, adapt to circumstances, tack this way and that. Another way: He's philosophically unanchored, an unstable element. There are too many storms within him, and he seeks out external storms in order to equalize his own atmosphere. He's a trouble magnet, a starter of fights that need not be fought. He is the first modern potential president about whom there is too much information.

What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don't. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington.

Those who've known and worked with Mitt Romney mostly seem to support him, but when they don't they don't say the reason is that his character and emotional soundness are off. Those who know Ron Paul and oppose him do so on the basis of his stands, they don't say his temperament forecloses the possibility of his presidency. But that's pretty much what a lot of those who've worked with Newt say.

Former New Hampshire governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu told The Wall Street Journal this week: "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled." In a conference call Thursday, Jim Talent, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House from 1993 through 1999, said, "He's not reliable as a leader." Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the House class of 1994, called the former speaker's leadership "lacking," and according to a local press report, he told Oklahoma constituents last year that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."

Sen. Lindsey Graham told a reporter that Mr. Gingrich could be a historic president if he has "matured as a person and is, for lack of a better word, calmed down." That is as close as most of those who've worked with him get to a compliment.

Yet the reservations and criticisms of the politico-journalistic establishment are having zero effect on Gingrich's support. In a Quinnipiac poll this week he moved into a double-digit lead over Mr. Romney in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The antipathy of the establishment not only is not hurting him at this early date, it may be helping him. It may be part of the secret of his rise. Because establishments, especially the Washington establishment, famously count for little with the Republican base: "You're the ones who got us into this mess."

Republicans on the ground who view Mr. Gingrich from afar, who neither know nor have worked with him, are more likely to see him this way: "Who was the last person to actually cut government? Who was the last person who actually led a movement that balanced the federal budget? . . . The last time there was true welfare reform, the last time government was cut, Gingrich did it." That is Rush Limbaugh, who has also criticized Mr. Gingrich.

More Peggy NoonanRead Peggy Noonan's previous columns

click here to order her new book, Patriotic Grace .And that is exactly what I've been hearing from Newt supporters who do not listen to talk radio. They are older voters, they are not all Republicans, and when government last made progress he was part of it. They have a very practical sense of politics now. The heroic era of the presidency is dead. They are not looking to like their president or admire him, they just want someone to fix the crisis. The last time helpful things happened in Washington, he was a big part of it. So they may hire him again. Are they put off by his scandals? No. They think all politicians are scandalous.

The biggest fear of those who've known Mr. Gingrich? He has gone through his political life making huge strides, rising in influence and achievement, and then been destabilized by success, or just after it. Maybe he's made dizzy by the thin air at the top, maybe he has an inner urge to be tragic, to always be unrealized and misunderstood. But he goes too far, his rhetoric becomes too slashing, the musings he shares—when he rose to the speakership, in 1995, it was that women shouldn't serve in combat because they're prone to infections—are too strange. And he starts to write in his notes what Kirsten Powers, in the Daily Beast, remembered: he described himself as "definer of civilization . . . leader (possibly) of the civilizing forces."

Those who know him fear—or hope—that he will be true to form in one respect: He will continue to lose to his No. 1 longtime foe, Newt Gingrich. He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, "Watch this!"

What they fear is that he will show just enough discipline over the next few months, just enough focus, to win the nomination. And then, in the fall of 2012, once party leaders have come around and the GOP is fully behind him, he will begin baying at the moon. He will start saying wild things and promising that he may bomb Iran but he may send a special SEAL team in at night to secretly dig Iran up, and fly it to Detroit, where we can keep it under guard, and Detroiters can all get jobs as guards, "solving two problems at once." They're afraid he'll start saying, "John Paul was great, but most of that happened after I explained the Gospels to him," and "Sure, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize, but only after I explained how people can think fast, slow and at warp speed. He owes me everything."

There are many good things to say about Newt Gingrich. He is compelling and unique, and, as Margaret Thatcher once said, he has "tons of guts."

the Republican voters are saying to the establishment - we are not going to simply except YOUR candidate this time. You gave as Dole, Bush, McCain and now Mitt. We are going to take the one we like. Newt is clearly not afraid to stick it to the "establishment". Take that Rove, take that the Bush clan. Take that Scarborough, take that Sununu and the rest of the ones who know what is best.

Rush is exactly right. I want someone to take it to Obama and liberal onslaught. Mitt is njust too vanilla (using Ed Schultz's word).

That said I don't take lightly the track record Newt has and the very legitimate concerns about his erractic personality.

We will se if Mitt can overcome this AND if Newt can continue to dazzle with sparks flying yet without short circuiting the whole campaign.

I still sit on the side lines and am queitly rooting for Newt to be OUR ONE.

(AGI) Washington - The Republican White House candidate Newt Gingrich has accused Obama of taking sides with the Palestinians. The former Speaker and election front-runner also said that the Palestinians are 'an invented people.' Gingrich said that were he to be impartial between a civil law-abiding society and a group of terrorists shooting missiles every day, this would not in fact constitute being impartial but would mean favouring the terrorists. Mr Gingrich does not differentiate between the ANP and Hamas. Interviewed on Israeli TV, Gringrich said 'I believe that the Jewish people have the right to have a state,' while 'we have invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community. [That's why] they had a chance to go many places.' . .

Like others round these parts, I’ve been reviled as a Rino squish and Romney shill for expressing a few misgivings about Newt, so credit where it’s due: One thing I like about him is that he knows so much more about so many more things that once in a while he can’t help blurting out something that no poll-tested, focus-grouped, finger-in-the-windy frontrunner would ever say in a thousand years. For example:

An executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hanan Ashrawi, said Gingrich has “lost touch with reality.”

The statements show “ignorance and bigotry” and are “a cheap way to win (the) pro-Israel vote,” Ashrawi told Voice of Palestine radio, in comments reported by the Palestinian Authority-controlled WAFA news agency.

To be honest, I had no idea “top Palestinian negotiator” Erekat and Mrs Ashrawi were still in business. They spent years serving as the bespoke western media frontmen for the kleptocrat Arafatists. Good to know that, even in the Hamas era, some things never change in the CNN and BBC rolodexes.